Despite the sheer scale of Sōgi’s contributions to The Tale of Genji’s reception history, the foremost linked-verse master of late Muromachi left behind very little in the way of formal commentary. Accordingly, while much has been said about his influence, and even some attempts made to provide a more concrete accounting of it, research in general has tended to focus on the far larger body of materials left by his students and disciples, with commentaries by Sōgi himself receiving scant attention. Indeed, it might well be said that previous studies have been content merely to determine Sōgi’s precise place in the history of medieval Genji scholarship. For a more precise grasp of Sōgi’s understanding of the Genji, we must therefore turn our attention to Sōgi’s own Genji writings, however few in number. As part of such a project, this paper will undertake a close study of Sōgi’s sole surviving full commentary, Rainy Night’s Dialogue （ Amayo danshō）, conducting a deep analysis of its contents and contrasting it with other commentaries in order to make its unique character clear.Rainy Night’s Dialogue, as reflected in its alternate title On the ‘Broom Tree’: A Separate Commentary （ Hahakigi betchū）, consists of a commentary solely on the Genji’s ‘Broom Tree’（Hahakigi） chapter. In the history of Genji scholarship it is best known as the earliest work to employ the term sōshiji（ “narrative voice”）. It also attracted early interest as a commentary authored by Sōgi, famously both student of Ichijō Kaneyoshi （author of the Genji commentary Echoes of Birds and Blossoms （ Kachō yosei）） and teacher to Sanjōnishi Sanetaka （author of the Genji commentary Tributary （Sairyūshō））. Yet with most scholarly effort devoted to determining the work’s relative position vis-à-vis other commentaries, a content analysis that might reveal what makes the work unique remains undone to the present day. Scholars have, for instance, previously described Rainy Night’s Dialogue as preserving certain elements of 14th-century Genji lore that Echoes of Birds and Blossoms had elected to abandon. I believe it more accurate, however, to see these elements as being preserved only in name, their meaning changed, to see them as not merely inherited but developed further. The same holds true even where Sōgi’s theories overlap with those of Echoes of Birds and Blossoms. Indeed, more than anything the true importance of Rainy Night’s Dialogue lies in not in what it conveys about the history of Genji scholarship, but rather in what it reveals about a revolution in Genji interpretation. For it was precisely this revolution, with Sōgi at its vanguard, that made possible the Genji’s late-Medieval leap from hallowed “national treasure” to reader-centered“ fiction.” Here I seek to provide an account of this new interpretative method used by Sōgi, and to consider its significance, eschewing traditional critical terminology such as“ evaluative” or “ literary” in favor always of analytic accuracy.